Euro: IoD slams decision to wait till 2004
The Institute of Directors has slammed Gordon Brown's plan to defer his decision on euro membership until next year.
It said that, although it was pleased the chancellor had admitted Britain had not yet met his five test for euro membership, it was ‘disappointed at his decision to re-assess the country’s readiness in a year.
Ruth Lea, head of the policy unit at the IoD, said: ‘The chancellor should, rule out re-assessing Britain’s economic readiness for euro membership for the lifetime of this parliament. We cannot see how the British economy will meaningfully attain sustainable convergence with the rest of the eurozone over the next 2-3 years.
‘We strongly believe that the British economy has not yet attained sustainable convergence with the rest of the eurozone and that we, therefore, could not live happily with the ECB’s interest rates.’